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Pragmatic Project Automation
The first 2 (or possibly 3) books are Pragmatic Version Control with CVS and Pragmatic Unit Testing (which is available in Java and .NET flavours).
Pragmatic Project Automation is the latest book in the series and, interestingly, this book wasn't actually written by either Dave Thomas or Andy Hunt, but by Mike Clark (contributor to the 'Bitter EJB' book, editor of the JUnit FAQ, and responsible for the JUnitPerf and JDepend tools). Mike does a great job of ensuring this book fits in with the overall style of the other books in the series.
Up front, in case you're a "cut to the chase kind of guy," this book (and the others in the series) are must-haves and as a consultant with ThoughtWorks I'll have a set ready to distribute whenever I start working with a new client team.
Content The book helps the reader build a Java project slowly over the chapters, starting with a manual build-and-deploy process and automating a new aspect of it, chapter by chapter, until by the end of the book the software compiles, archives, deploys and configures itself multiple times a day. In addition, the build tools notify you of success or failure in a variety of interesting ways including email, SMS messages and different colored lava lamps.
The first chapter provides a good introduction to the different types of automation available to projects. It also introduces the acronym 'CRISP' to help the reader remember the desirable characteristics of an ideal build process: Complete, Repeatable, Informative, Scheduled and Portable.
Chapter 2 gets you Repeatable by using ANT to bring together all the various steps you currently perform on your project into a single, one-click build. Chapter 3 works to turn the one-click build into a no-click build using tools as simple as cron as well as more complicated tools like the ANT scheduling tool CruiseControl. By the end of these two chapters your software can be compiling and testing itself automatically each time changes are checked into the version control system. But this is only the beginning.
Chapters 4 and 5 address the "Complete" and "Portable" portions of the CRISP model discussing how to include packaging, release management and deployment into your scheduled build. The last chapter addresses "Informative." How to monitor the build for success or failure, how to notify members of the project team using email, SMS, RSS or even the red and green Lava Lamps I mentioned above.
Summary This book, and the others in the series, provide a much needed set of manuals for getting a good set of basic practices up and running at the start of a project. Unlike the Unit Testing book, there's not a lot of programming in this one, but it's a worthwhile read for any programmer, regardless of experience level.
Many people are becoming interested in eXtreme Programming and Agile methods for software development. These books help to support some of the key ideas of those methods - extensive unit testing and continuous integration.
The main flaw in the book doesn't affect its usefulness, only its readability. Of all the files used in the sample project, the only one covered in any detail is the build file. The source and manifest files that we're writing the ANT file to build are never discussed or described - we are left to guess at what the sample project might contain (unless we download the code from the website). While this didn't change what I was learning (how to manipulate the project files with ANT), I like to understand all the details and this omission did occasionally leave me a little irritated.
You can purchase Pragmatic Project Automation from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page. If you are interested in the Pragmatic Programmers, see also this interview linked earlier from Slashdot.
What if your an idealist??
"There's no set architecture in Linux. All roads lead to madness" -Microsoft
Squeegee Robot with sign saying: "Will Automate For Food"
...I've integrated it into our hourly build; it's handy info.
The Army reading list
The Pragmatic Programmers seem to be doing a great job with their new publishing efforts. They're able to get new titles out much more quickly than some of the more established publishers by following their own advice about automation and applying it to publishing. I recall reading on one of their blogs that they were able to go from idea to actual book in under six months.
I can't wait for their upcoming Ruby book.
This is a nice little book. Don't forget the web site either.
.. why didn't I think of this before??
.. once you get a taste you start doing it all the time and your productivity goes up yet another notch.
I'm not a Java programmer (mostly Ruby and Perl) but I found a lot of stuff in this book inspiring. After reading this book I got bitten by the automation bug and did stuff like this:
* gave my big deployed apps RSS feed logging for errors (i.e., now I can track recent warnings and errors in apps deployed across the country, just in NetNewsWire)
* wrote a ruby script to automatically run unit tests whenever the files change.. based on a script on the web site. this is really cool! You edit your source file, save it, and pause to glance at the unit test window. again, why on earth didn't I think of this before!
* wrote an automated test framework using WWW::Mechanize to log into web apps and check for errors or anything else and send out emails
* use a nightly cron to check latest code out of CVS, run all tests, and run web tests..
Anyway "project automation" is like unit testing
So even if you don't do Java you can find a lot of ideas in this book (like the lava lamps showing build status!)
I found that Donald Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming" was the most visionary book in applying code to real-world situations. Although this slashdot story is a status of the first anouncment on the Pragmatic Programmer being composed a while ago, I'm thankful its status is made known. I bought it from Amazon.com and am only 33% into the book. It is verry enlightening, equaly so to "Art of Computer Programming." I think it doesn't bring enough introductory information to warrant purchase by a Novice. To prepare for this book, I found the best recommendation from my shelf to be "Computer Hardware Theory" (1972 University of Illinois) and "Fundamentals of Signal Theory" (1960). Being a programmer isn't supposed to be all-software; you need to know the basics of the hardware so you can prepare your code to be cross-platform.
I am the nightmare of nightmares.
...is right here.
It uses Java to talk to the serial port... seems like a good application for ruby-serial, too...
The Army reading list
Here is Dave Thomas' web site
Programming Ruby - The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide is an excellent guide to learn Ruby, full of examples and great explanations.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Probably most of us already know what these are, but for those who don't:
Extreme Programming.
Agile software development.
That's also the home page for the book with downloaded code samples and so on.
thanks!
This book seems like a good one for all developers to read. I'm honestly only about half way though it, but I've skimmed the whole thing.
The big thing that jumps out at me is that he promotes how cool CruiseControl is for automating builds, but uses cron for his release builds. Generally, I would want to use the same tool to create my continuous integration, nightly and production release builds. I was under the impression that there were ways to make that happen in CruiseControl.
disclaimer: I help write a product that does do this, so maybe I'm just projecting biases.
The section on diagnostics also looks quite interesting, but I'm not that far yet.
Following his success in writing a book on Project Automation Dave Thomas decided he'd share his knowledge of Pragmatic Patty Production with the world.
In this tell all exposee of beefly manufacturing processes, he teaches the enthralled reader how to use common, freely available tools to automate build, test, and release highly beeftacular burgers at a fraction of the current cost!
Way to go, Dave Thomas!
On the other hand, there is Test Environment Toolkit that noone seems to use. And STAF which requires a huge investment of time just to comprehend.
So, question: what tools do people find useful for build/test automation with C++ ?
Test 1 2 3 4
So, the PragProg is a grab bag. Who knew.
(or 'PragProg' as it is usually referred to)
I'm a huge fan of PragProg. Oh Yes, we Rushed though development of our last application. Only once did we lose Focus, but you Can easily avoid these issues. Since its Genesis, we've got nearly a Marillion hits a day. I can't wait Tull I pick up this book.
If you are looking for a more generic build/test runner dashboard than cruise control, take a look at DART. Its free, open source, and makes very few restrictions on those projects which wish to use it.
Here are some example dartboards.
Here is my dart board for the Mobius Project I work on.
'Fahrt Nacht Bumplitz' ? I saw that headline whilst reading a German newspaper whilst riding an Italian train a few months ago..
johnnyb,
Thankyou for uncovering your book's title to me. I'ld login as "SlashdotTroll" and post, but a number of users have prejudiced my name and reduced my karma from Positive to Bad. (let it be known, a good deed on slashdot will never go unpunished) Thanks for that link and I hope to order it soon. Do you sell direct, through an eBay or Yahoo Auctions store, or is it on Amazon or my local book market? Thanks again,
-SlashdotTroll
I like this book and the review is good, but take the review with a grain of salt. The reviewer is a Thought Works consultant. The book spends some solid time on CruiseControl which is a Thought Works donation to the open source community. That he likes it isn't too much of a surprise - particularly since the book, in fact, is quite good.
But am I the only one who thought "The Pragmatic Programmer" wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. While I've enjoyed other classics* and found them stimulating or invaluable, I found that book insufferable.
*some theoryish: SICP, PAIP, and compiling with continuations; some whimsical--Programming Pearls and Gabriel's memoir-ish musings about patterns; some journeymen--O'Reilly's lex'n'yacc and sed'n'awk books, Kernighan's Practice of Programming, and even Stroustrup's definitive tome.
Worst. Troll. Ever.